It only cost the taxpayer about half a million dollars for Parliament to sit today, but at least the folks in Canberra managed to get the job done. The bill to force a separation of Telstra’s wholesale and retail arms has just been passed. Who’s up for some champagne?
Currently in the Senate is a bill to force the separation of Telstra’s wholesale and retail arms. The Labor government desperately wanted to have the legislation passed by last night, even going so far as to make concessions to independent Senator Nick Xenephon in order to get him to vote on their side. But the opposition have pulled the douche card, using stalling tactics to delay the vote until Monday. More »
It has all the trappings to become one of the most boring movies of all time… Close your eyes and imagine the trailer for… The Network. The Gillard government, desperate to push its National Broadband Network agenda forward before parliament closes for the year, is torn between two pieces of paper. One, a business report on the NBN which is being demanded by the opposition, and the second a piece of legislation that will force the separation of Telstra’s wholesale and retail arms. And one man stands in the way… Independant Senator Nick Xenephon. More »
Ars Technica is reporting that the US National Association of Broadcasters and the RIAA are in talks to strike a compromise that could result in a Congressional mandate to include FM radios in phones and other portable electronics. Thanks, but no thanks? More »
You know what? That proposed mandatory internet filter the Labor government is trying to force upon us has been rather unpopular. It might even cost them some votes. Which is probably why they’ve decided to delay legislating it until after the next federal election later this year. More »
The Mojave Desert – last seen on our virtual pages when the SpaceShipTwo was unveiled – has leapt into the news again today, thanks to Senator Dianne Feinstein’s legislation which will stop 13 solar plants and wind turbines from moving in. More »
President Obama’s new “Passenger’s Bill of Rights” should come in handy now with the massive apocalyptic snowstorms ravaging the northeast and cheering children’s hearts. If you sit on the tarmac in a plane for more than two hours and haven’t been given food or water, or for more than three hours and haven’t been given the option of getting off the goddamn plane, the airline is now subject to massive fines ($US27,500 per passenger). More »
Somebody get me some popcorn: This could get very messy. Today Senator Conroy announced that the Rudd government has made some pretty major changes to telecommunications laws that will require Telstra to structurally separate its wholesale and retail businesses. And if they don’t do it voluntarily, the government’s going to bring the pain… More »
With all the advances in technology we’ve had over the last couple of decades, you’d think that something as simple as changing your land line number into a cellular one would take hours at most. At least Congress does, and its now urging the FCC to put rules in place that will speed up local number portability processing.
Europe may be ok with passengers making in-flight calls on their mobile phones, but at least a few members of Congress have the foresight to see how this situation could become problematic in the US. A new bill has been introduced that promises to ban mobile phone calls on US flights, but not text messaging and web surfing. The bill has yet to be passed, but the question is: Do you support a ban?
